Dane soon tired of Happy City. It might sparkle with excitement at night when all its lights were ablaze and its streets and buildings were alive with people bent on finding their particular definition of fun, but now, as Ali had predicted, most of the area was closed tightly while the greater part of its denizens slept away the hours of Hallo’s light. It looked dingy and tawdry and also a little sad, like a hope just beginning to fade.
Canuche permitted bawdry, gaming, and the sale for use outside the home of the many legal intoxicants, but strictly limited the areas in which such commerce could be conducted. The result was a series of pleasure districts, one for each of the provinces into which the big planet was divided.
There was no need to conceal the nature of Happy City’s major industries, and no attempt was made to do so. Every block had one, and usually several, scarlet-fronted erotic houses with their posters of provocative symbols describing the company and substances to be found within. Interspersed among these were a bewildering number of drinking and smoking establishments, all featuring both live entertainment and gambling. Some offered facilities for dancing and food as well, the latter limited to light dishes geared to the desires of people whose main interest was in consuming products of another sort or to those wanting something to nibble while watching a show or taking a brief break from their exploration of the various haunts of the region. A few would also provide chambers where darker products could be purchased and used away from the prying eyes of the local police and the Stellar Patrol.
The remaining buildings housed straight dining places, the more pretentious of which called themselves restaurants. Those, too, were closed, and from the look of them, he was glad their guide had steered them to that eatery down by the waterfront. He doubted they would have found much of a spacer’s definition of either quantity or quality in any of these.
That would not be true once they reached the northern section, of course, with its legitimate theaters and fine restaurants, but none of those were priced to attract the patronage of apprentices from small rim Free Traders.
Thorson shook his head. The existence of the facilities around them was hardly cause for amazement. Every spaceport of any significance provided similar services, all carefully supervised for the protection of reasonably cautious spacers. The concentration of them and the sheer size of the district was something else for one accustomed from his youth to the almost ascetic standards of the Pool. Gut level, he found this wholesale dedication to raw physical amusement a little disconcerting and more so the realization that Happy City was not unique in the universe. Many planets shared the same legal attitude toward the activities pursued here, and just about every one of them sported similar areas, all more or less notorious. Where excess was expected, and encouraged, it usually occurred.
All at once, his mind snapped back from the contemplation of the cultural phenomenon of the pleasure district to fix on their immediate surroundings. He stiffened as he did so. There were few locals on the streets, but his party was drawing an uncommon amount of interest from those who were about.
To be more precise, Rael Cofort was attracting it. The time they had spent living and working together on the Solar Queen had bred a familiarity that had blunted his awareness of the Medic’s beauty. Canucheans were not so blinded, and to their way of thinking, there was but one reason why so pretty a woman should be wandering around a region like this.
The same held true for a particularly handsome man. Ali, too, was receiving some close scrutiny.
Thorson could feel his temper rising and also his concern. Sure, the four of them could defend themselves against the single or couple of individuals they encountered, but those one or two had friends, doubtless within easy call. There was precious little anyone could do against a mob except hope to outrun it.
His fear eased in the next moment. It was inevitable that they should attract attention. The fact that they were obvious strangers would in itself ensure that they were noticed.
Ali and Rael merely increased their conspicuousness. They were a singularly handsome pair by any standard that appreciated even marginally the Terran prototype, and in a place where beauty was routinely bartered, they had to expect close scrutiny.
There would be no trouble, not as long as they conducted themselves circumspectly, at least not at this hour, while Happy City was quiet and its patrons unfired by chemicals and the nighttime excitement of the place. They were, after all, off-worlders, not merely outsiders. They would not be expected to understand the nuances of appropriate behavior, much less to abide by them.
Space hounds were no more immune to that error than were their surplanetary kindred, he had to admit in all fairness. Almost to a one, they tended to regard the planet bound with precisely the same overblown, parochial tolerance. It was an odd prejudice when one considered it, and it applied almost exclusively to the various branches of humanity originating on Terra—races and species with other roots usually demanded more exacting compliance with local custom, with far heavier penalties for failure— but spacers, at least, had reason to be grateful that it existed. The attitude might in theory be a bit demeaning, but it did allow one to get on with the work at hand and conduct business effectively on planets with restrictive societies and moral or social codes strongly at variance with those ruling the starlanes.
Relaxing again, Dane turned his attention back to the silent, waiting city. They were passing one of the narrow alleys separating two outward-facing rows of buildings, and he paused a moment to study it.
The long, deeply shadowed passage was like any one of the countless others they had seen on their informal tour.
It was set exactly one step below the buildings lining it on both sides and was paved or tarred with a smooth, dark substance resistant to staining and capable of withstanding the heavy morning traffic engaged in the removal of garbage and other refuse and in the delivery of various supplies.
He noted again that each establishment seemed to possess the ability to close off its own share of the alley by means of high, retractable chain link fences, all of which were now drawn back in whole or part into their sheaths to allow the various service vehicles ready access to the entire passage. “Why the fences?” he wondered aloud. He could see no ready explanation for this apparently universal proprietary interest in these small, ugly patches of real estate.
Ali gave him one of his superior looks that still had the power to irritate the starlight out of Dane. “Well, my boy,” he pontificated, “consider the number of people, many of them total strangers, frequenting these worthy palaces of entertainment. Quite, a few of those individuals would probably like to enjoy the delights of the house and then quietly depart with their store of wealth intact. The proprietors are doubtless unsympathetic to such initiative and most likely reason that a forest of high fences will render a quick dash out the back door ineffectual.”
“Why all the chain, then?” Thorson inquired, refusing to let the other annoy him. “A solid metal barrier of this height’d be harder to scale, especially by someone who’d had a few.”
“Spare us, Ali!” Rael pleaded, laughing. “A straight reply really will do just nicely.”
The Engineer-apprentice started to scowl but then merely shrugged. “Actually, I don’t know the answer to that one,” he confessed.
“It’s so the Canuchean police and the Patrol can see at a glance what’s happening when they go by, which they do frequently and on an irregular schedule,” she informed them. “That’s why a minimum amount of lighting’s required as well. Drunks still get rolled, I’m sure, and troublesome or slow-paying patrons worked over, but this does help to keep a reasonable hatch on such practices.”
As she was speaking, Dane moved closer to the wall to study the mechanism of the fence. His companions started to join him, but Rael quickly stepped back again. “Space, what a stink!”
Ali cleared his throat. “With the volume of drinking and mixing of substances,” he said delicately, “a certain effluvium is to be expected around the back door.”
“All right, Ali,” Rip Shannon interjected. “We get the picture.”
Kamil grinned at his companion’s squeamishness but followed the others readily as they hastened to move away from the shabby yard. He had not been aware of any particularly unpleasant smell until Cofort had mentioned it, but once she did, he caught it as well, a muskiness tinged with ammonia.
The four paused when they reached the front of the establishment, a drinking bar called the Red Garnet. It was open, not merely undergoing a cleaning and set-up for the night ahead but apparently inviting trade.